A rotary atomizer turbine may be designed as a radial turbine for driving a spraying body (for example a bell plate) in a rotary atomizer.
In modern painting installations for the painting of motor vehicle body components, the application of paint is normally performed using rotary atomizers in which a bell plate, as a spraying body, rotates at a high rotational speed of up to 80,000 revolutions per minute.
The bell plate is normally driven by a pneumatically driven turbine, which is normally in the form of a radial turbine, which supplies the driving air for driving the turbine in a plane oriented radially with respect to the axis of rotation of the turbine. A rotary atomizer turbine of said type is known for example from EP 1 384 516 B1 and DE 102 36 017 B3.
Typically, multiple turbine blades are arranged on a rotatable turbine wheel so as to be distributed over the circumference, which turbine blades are subjected to a flow of driving air by driving air nozzles in order to mechanically drive the rotary atomizer turbine.
Furthermore, the known rotary atomizer turbines also permit rapid braking of the rotary atomizer turbine, for example in the event of an interruption in painting operation. For this purpose, the turbine blades are subjected to a flow of braking air counter to the direction of rotation by a separate braking nozzle. However, said known rotary atomizer turbines are not optimal in various respects.
Firstly, the braking performance is not optimal, such that during a braking process, the rotary atomizer turbine comes to a standstill only after a certain run-down time.
Secondly, there is also the aim of increasing the drive power of the rotary atomizer turbine in order that the surface coating performance can be correspondingly increased. Specifically, to increase the surface coating performance, an increased paint flow (amount of paint per unit of time) must be applied, which in turn leads to a greater mechanical load on the rotary atomizer turbine and requires correspondingly increased drive power.
The technological background of the present disclosure also includes DE 102 33 199 A1, DE 10 2010 013 551 A1 and US 2007/0257131 A1. However, these publications do no solve the problem of an unsatisfactory braking power and drive power.